95 Year Old WWII Veteran Gets Help With Citizenship

on: April 02, 2011

95 Year Old Gets Help With Citizenship

When 95-year-old Leland Davidson wanted to visit his relatives in Canada recently he discovered that he couldn’t prove his U.S. citizenship. Thanks to some help, Davidson will be getting that proof in a special ceremony along with 58 other people.

Davidson had never considered after all these years that he wasn’t a citizen, as his parents moved to the U.S. when he was only 5 years old and he had become a citizen shortly after that.

However, the paperwork was since lost and he wasn’t able to produce it to get the enhanced driver’s license he needed to go visit the relatives in Canada.

Davidson was also in the military and served honorably in the U.S. Navy during World II. Part of the problem was that his father was born in 1887 and the state of Iowa didn’t start keeping records until the following year, so they couldn’t prove where he was born.

Davidson was more concerned than just not being able to get the special drivers license, as he could lose his Medicare and Social Security if he wasn’t able to prove his U.S. citizenship.

To solve Davidson’s dilemma, the office of U.S. Sen. Patty Murray helped him to get an application for citizenship, and Davidson wasn’t even charged for it since he is a veteran.

In the meantime, proof of his parent’s U.S. citizenship was discovered, and that makes him automatically a U.S. citizen.

Davidson will get his special certificate from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at a ceremony this week and it will serve as a substitute for the lost birth certificate as proof of U.S. citizenship.